An 89-year-old Vancouver woman is in hospital with a broken shoulder after a home invasion and mugging at her apartment in Vancouver's West End on New Year's Day.

The elderly woman had been robbed for the first time while she was returning home from shopping on Dec. 31, when a man approached her and took her wallet from her pocket.

Then, somebody buzzed the woman at her apartment the next day, claiming he had the wallet and wanted to return it, Vancouver police spokesman Const. Howard Chow said.

Const. Howard Chow says the 89-year-old woman was seriously hurt when the man forced his way into her apartment.
(CBC file)

"This 89-year-old woman opens up the door and is met by this person that is standing there. She thinks something is up here and doesn't close the door. He forces his way in anyways and knocks her on the ground.

"He sits her back up in a chair in the living room and he continues to ransack the home looking for any cash or anything like that."

Calling it a "cowardly, vicious attack," Chow said the woman broke her shoulder when she fell.

The woman, who was unable to move in the chair after the attack, wasn't found until hours later by her family when they went to visit.

Police say they are looking for an athletic First Nations male, aged 40 to 50, six feet tall, wearing a dark blue jacket and a red hoodie.